Tony continued, “It has nothing to do with Unterden-Eichen, Under the Oaks. We were wrong. We stopped short. We didn’t follow it hard enough. The Jew was right. It
Leets looked at the name.
“There’s your bloody Man of Oak,” said Tony.
The tag said, “Originals on file Amt IV-B-4, Obersturmbannfuhrer Eichmann.”
26
“Repp?” He hadn’t heard her come in. “Repp? Where are you?”
“Here,” he said feebly. “What the hell took you so long?”
She came up the stairs and into the room. Today she wore a smart blue suit and a hat with a veil.
“My God,” she said. “You look ill. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Do you want something? Brandy? I have some brandy.”
“No, no. Stop it, please. Tell me what I sent you out to find.”
“I have a surprise for you.”
“Margareta. I have a headache. I don’t have time for—”
She held out an unopened pack of Siberias. “Surprise,” she said.
“Where on earth did you get those?”
“From a boy. I smiled at him. He was charmed to give them to me. He’d been in the East, I guess.”
Repp opened the pack greedily, and extracted one of the cigarettes. The paper had begun to turn brown from age and, lighting it quickly, he realized how stale the thing was. Still: delicious.
“French, incidentally,” she said.
“Eh? I’m not sure what—”
“It’s the French. The French who’ve occupied us. In American uniforms with American equipment. But the French.”
“Well, it’s the same. Maybe worse. We never took America. We took France in ’40.”
“They seem very benign. They sit in the square and whistle at the women. They drink. The officers are all in the cafe.”
“What about ours?”
“Our boys handed in their rifles and were marched away. It was almost a ceremony, like a changing of the guard. It was all very cheerful. No shots were fired. The guns weren’t even loaded.”
“Tell me what I sent you out for. How many are there? What are the security arrangements? How are they monitoring civilian traffic? Have they set up border checkpoints? Is there a list that you know of?”
“List?”
“Yes. Of criminals. Am I on it?”
“I don’t know anything of any list. I certainly didn’t see one. There are not so many of them. They have put up signs. Regulations. All remaining German soldiers and military personnel must turn themselves in by tomorrow noon on the Munsterplatz. All party uniforms, banners, flags, standards, regalia, knives — anything with the swastika on it has been collected and dumped in a big pile. Denazification they call it, but it’s souvenirs they want.”
“The border. The border.”
“All right. I went there too. Nothing. Some bored men, sitting in a small open car. They haven’t even occupied the blockhouse, though I do know they removed our Frontier Police detachment. I think the fence is patrolled too.”
“I see. But it’s not—”
“Repp, the border is not their central concern right now. Sitting in the sun, looking at women, thinking about what to do when the war’s over: those are their central concerns.”
“What travel regulations have they posted?”
“None, yet.”
“What about—”
“Repp, nothing’s changed. Some French soldiers are now sitting around the Munsterplatz, where yesterday it was our boys. Our boys will be back soon. You’ll see. It’s almost finished. It won’t last much longer.”
He sat back.
“Very good,” he said. “You know they offered me an Amt Six-A woman, a professional. But I insisted on you. I’m glad. It was too late for strangers. This is too important for strangers. I’m so glad they convinced you to help.”
“It’s difficult for a German to say No to the SS.”
“It’s difficult for a German to say No to duty.”
“Repp, I have something I’d like to discuss, please.”
“What?”
“A wonderful idea really. It came to me while I was out.”
She did seem happier than yesterday. She wasn’t so tired for one thing and she looked better, though maybe he had only grown used to the imperfectly joined face.
“What?”
“It’s simple. I see it now. I knew there was a design in all this. Don’t go.”
“What?”
“Don’t do it. Whatever it is, don’t do it. It can’t matter. Now, so late. Stay here.” She paused. “With me.”
“Stay?” A stupid thing to say. But she had astonished him.
“Yes. Remember Berlin, ’42, after Demyansk, how good it was? All the parties, the operas. Remember, we went riding in the Tiergarten, it was spring, just like it is now. You were so heroic, I was beautiful. Berlin was beautiful. Well, it can be like that again. I was thinking. It can be just like that, here. Or not far from here, in Zurich. There’s money, you have no idea how much. You’ve got your passport. I can get across, I know I can, somehow. All sorts of things are possible, if you’d only—”
“Stop it,” he said. “I don’t want to hear this.”
He wished she hadn’t brought it up; but she had. Now he wished she’d drop it; but she wouldn’t.
“You’ll die out there. They’ll kill you. For nothing,” she said.
“Not for nothing. For everything.”
“Repp, God knows I’m not much. But I’ve survived. So have you. We can begin with that. I don’t expect you to love me as you loved the pretty idiot in Berlin. But I won’t love you the way I loved the handsome, thick-skulled young officer. It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine.”
“Margareta—”
“Nobody cares anymore. I could see it on their faces. Our boys’ faces. They didn’t care. They were glad it was over. They went willingly, happily. To die now is pointless. My brother and father are dead. All the men I’ve loved are dead. To join them would be insane. And you did more than all of them put together. You’ve earned your holiday.”
“Stop it.”
“These French seem all right. They’re not evil men, I could tell. Not Jews, or working for Jews. Just men, just soldiers. They got along quite well with our boys. It was a touching scene.”
“You sound like you’re describing some kind of medieval pageant.”
“There’s no disgrace in having lost a war.”
How could he tell her? What words could there be? That he was part of a crusade, even if no one remembered or would admit it. He was all that was left of it. If he had to give his life, he’d give it. That he was a hard man, totally ruthless, and proud. He’d killed a thousand men in a hundred wrecked towns and snowy forests
